Some People Have Real Problems
by pinkbagels
Summary: When Crowley's meatsuit mutinies it's up to Castiel and the Winchesters to help The King Of Hell get back into his favourite blood and guts condominium. What starts off as a seemingly easy assignment quickly turns into a drama about a dead dog and a haphazard pile of memories. Putting a leash on Crowley's body proves harder than expected.


**some people have real problems**

a Supernatural fanfiction by pinkbagels

_A dead dog and a mutinous meatsuit cause Crowley no end of trouble. _

_For more fanfiction and other works by pinkbagels be sure to visit her livejournal at: .com_

_Characters are based on the television show Supernatural, owned by Erik Kripke and Co. Story by pinkbagels._

**chapter one **

Crowley brooded over his glass of brandy, its heady aroma and smooth taste doing little to ease the dark mood he'd been cultivating for the past two hours. He had finished his job with the Winchesters, had saved the ridiculous world they existed in and was now free to enjoy the exploits of being the King of Hell. The trouble was, without an impending apocalypse hanging over the universe with ticking Dr. Strangelove frenzy there wasn't much else for him to do. The adrenaline rush of heading off Lucifer and dealing with the twisted logic of angels from On High had long since worn off. He was now doomed to the petty whims of humans and their make believe dramas. Adultery. Murder. Thieving and coveting. All very pedestrian and banal pursuits that on the surface looked like a vacation but were, in fact, pointless exercises in filling one's day for that relentless bitch known as Time.

They'd ruined what was once a good thing, those Winchester boys, he thought with malice. The best part of his job had been all the weaselling and conniving and backdoor backstabbing but now all these little menial contracts paled in comparison to that one Big Score. He was now demoted to sitting on comfortable couches and admiring his post-modern fireplace, his brandy warming up from the considerable heat in his palm. Bastards. They'd saved the world and turned his wonderful, fiery hell into a suburb.

The face in his fireplace had long since burned away, revealing the grinning skull beneath. It too began to crackle beneath the white hot heat he kept the fire roaring at, the bones at last turning to charcoal while the teeth stubbornly remained intact. A briefcase from Smitty's Furnace Repair lay on its side, its contents spilled across the soft lambskin carpet that adorned the floor. His contract was up, of course, all very orderly and neat and Smitty didn't put up as much of a fuss as Crowley had expected him to. Smitty had been proud of his accomplishments in creating sustainable alternatives to natural gas furnaces and the start-up for his project was well worth the price of his soul if it meant the planet could benefit from his invention. Goddamned ecological martyr. Crowley picked up the poker and gave Smitty's sizzling bones a whack for good measure. His rib cage erupted into a shower of sparks that burned holes in the lambskin carpet.

Altruistic furnace repairmen-Was there any end to humanity's useless existence? He sighed and sat back on his white leather couch, sipping at the warmed brandy in his grip. He supposed things could be worse. After all, he did manage to get another season of Big Brother on the air not to mention those mysterious extra charges on cell phones that were now stubbornly commonplace. Small successes, but they were destined to create havoc in even the calmest of places. Only last week a yoga instructor had a full on meltdown in front of her clients thanks to a two hundred dollar cell phone bill on a phone she no longer owned. He had a lot of knowledge, it was true, but he never knew it was actually possible for a human being to be flexible enough to actually pull a Linda Blair head turn of 360 degrees without snapping one's neck.

The puking in time to Yanni wasn't his fault, of course. That was the bad tempeh salad.

Furious yoga instructors and ecological furnace repairmen were not, however, what was foremost in Crowley's mind at present. As he sank further onto the couch, enjoying the warmth and luxury surrounding him, the pop of human bones crackling in the fire, he had to admit that this was the ideal job he'd been searching for when he'd first been given the post. Being Kind was supposed to be easy, especially for a man whose sole care was for how old his brandy was and did his suit fit to the perfection of his own expectations. The one he was wearing now had a slightly imperfect dart in the seam just beneath his elbow. The Korean seamstress who had made *that* mistake was going to pay dearly.

Annoyed, he picked up the local paper and perused it with idle eyes, his glance taking in the usual stories of earthquakes, hurricanes, economic collapse, terrorism and virus outbreaks before turning to his favourite column, Dear Granny. Dear Granny was not, of course, a Granny, but a two thousand year old demon in a thirty-one year old woman's body who dutifully typed out terrible advice to unsuspecting broken hearted saps and gullible morons-most of the human race, in fact. He read the first problem begging for Dear Granny's fix: "My boyfriend tries on my underwear and he says he's not cheating on me with my cross-dressing uncle, but how can I be sure?"

Crowley sighed. Maybe he should have let the apocalypse happen. It was a natural mistake, believing one's sudden promotion to King Of Hell to have more staying power than a five minute stint in Winchesters United's little universe of demon bashing. An apocalypse be damned, he wasn't giving up his cozy new promotion without a fight! Really, what did Lucifer expect, that he wouldn't fight for his new job? He'd clearly never heard of the entrepreneurial spirit, and Crowley was full to bursting with those. Those souls went down well with a good Merlot.

He read through the Dear Granny article, where she encouraged the young woman to allow her boyfriend to continue borrowing her clothes and could she perhaps be more understanding of his search for his identity. The signs of him being a possible serial killer were surely exaggerated. It wasn't like he was stripping people's flesh and wearing it...Yet.

Crowley smiled. Good old Dear Granny, she never disappoints.

His eye travelled south to a small local article about someone drowning a neighbour's dog. Crowley's interest was immediately piqued and he sat on the edge of the couch, the brandy balanced uneasily in his grip. One paragraph, and yet it sent him hot enough to make the brandy boil and bubble in its glass, the rim cracking into jagged shards:

_DOG DROWNED, NEIGHBOURS WARY OF DOG KILLER_

_It was a shocking act of animal cruelty. Homeowner Evan Cornish went out to get his morning paper when he stumbled upon the body of his dog, Galileo, his border collie cross. Galileo had suffered obvious trauma and according to an investigation by police it is believed the dog was drowned. _

_"I don't know who would do such a thing," a tearful Evan Cornish told police. "It's so cruel. He was an old dog, he never hurt anyone. It's so awful."_

_The drowning itself is a mystery to police since there are no rivers or lakes or even swimming pools in the immediate area. "For someone to go through this kind of trouble, they want to send a message," Police Constable Alex Rickers said. "Clearly Mr. Cornish has an enemy."_

_Evan Cornish denies this and maintains he knows of no one who would have cause to drown his dog. Mr. Cornish says he has suffered severe depression as a result of this incident and is wary of his own safety._

Son of a bitch. A dog. Someone drowned an innocent, elderly *dog* for no particular reason? What in his own Hades was humanity coming to? Of all the bloody vile things a human being could do, some bastard had to step outside of their own goddamned pile of steaming shyte to go out of their way to hurt a *dog*?

A *dog*?

He made a motion to stand and his knee hit something invisible and solid beside him. He answered the ghostly whimper with a scratch behind Growley's massive head, somewhere in the vicinity of the hell hound's ears. "A bloody dog. Don't you worry old boy, I'll get him for that, whoever he is. Disgusting wretch!" He fought the urge to give his now nuzzling hell hound a fierce hug around his thick, monstrous neck, the small article having provoked feelings in himself he'd long forgotten. As King of Hell it was important he had no care for humanity, and he didn't, but that apathy most definitely did not extend to the tail thumping creature that sat beside him at present, its breath so bad it could make a bear pass out.

There are a lot of things one could say about Crowley. If you aren't keen on using curse words, you can mention that he is a dog lover.

"There's a good boy, don't you worry your big, slobbery head about it, we'll get who did that terrible thing to that doggie now won't we?" Crowley grinned over Growley's tasting lick that covered his face in virtual dog slop. "Some people have real problems, don't they? Don't fret, we'll get him, boy. Now, where was that address again?" He reached behind him to grab the newspaper, but something was amiss. Growley, in the way that dogs-even hell hounds-are, gave him a questioning whine that suggested he wasn't sure, but there was a serious breach of what he, in his dog-like way, understood to be reality. There was a half growl and then a rather frightened whine, and Crowley frowned, unable to find his paper, unable even to grasp the couch he'd been sitting on, or to feel the roar of the fire, or the inability to feel the pinching annoyance of an imperfect dart in the elbow of his almost, but not quite, expertly tailored suit.

There was good reason for Growley to be upset. Crowley was beginning to understand how the hell hound felt. For there, on the couch, sitting as though it had nothing at all to do, was Crowley's meatsuit, primly propped up and separated from Crowley's essence, refusing to give its most esteemed guest the time of day. It folded the newspaper in half and placed it gently on the cushion beside it before brushing off imaginary bits of dog hair and getting up.

Crowley could only watch, helpless, as the human body stepped out of the living room and into the nearby washroom, where it scrubbed at its face with a jasmine scented towel and inspected the red capillaries in the whites of its eyes before reaching into the cabinet for a bottle of shaving cream.

"Oh no you don't!" Crowley shouted at it. "It took me ages to get that beard to look right! Don't you dare ruin that trim!"

The body turned, giving Crowley a raised brow in response. Ignoring the protests of the King of Hell it began to do the impossible.

It began to shave.

Crowley went after it. It had been his five star hotel for the past few months and he wasn't about to check out just yet, especially with the body being so damned insulting in its bland assessment of Crowley's care. "You let me back in!" Crowley demanded of it, storming into the washroom and through the now closed door. "You bloody buggery bastard! I took good care of you, way better than that last one! I'm the one who owns you now!"

But the body refused to be compliant. Though the soul had long left it, there seemed to be an automatic, residual memory coursing within it, and in this memory was a strangely powerful will that refused to allow Crowley access. He slid in front of the body, only to be physically pushed against the sink and then through it, Crowley's ethereal existence reduced to a reflection in the mirror.

Ignoring Crowley's continued protests, the body finished shaving.

"Bollocks!" Crowley shouted, and in the background he noticed Growley slink silently away to slump his massive, invisible bulk against the back door in depressed confusion. "You will do what I want!"

The body turned on the shower. It seemed that this day, its goal was about Ivory soap and a shot of Head And Shoulders. The water was hot as it hit the body's skin, the steam from the shower obscuring Crowley's view.

"Bollocks!" he shouted at it from beneath the opacity of the mirror. "Bollocks! Bollocks! Bollocks!"

**chapter two **

Castiel, being an angel of the Lord, was not used to using electronic gadgetry designed solely for human use. Though there were angels in the celestial plane who expressed a certain admiration for these devices, Castiel was forever perturbed and annoyed by their clunky, ineffectual designs. Case in point, the ridiculous cell phone he held in his hand, its little blue light insisting he answer a text message when it would be so much easier to simply fly to them and talk face to face. Why was there this need to spend all this time typing out a message through a tiny, half palm sized keyboard, and of what use was this keyboard anyway when he had the power of speech, and again, what use was a cell phone when, as an angel of the Lord, he could simply fly to wherever the person was calling from with a speed that would have him in said texting person's presence within seconds.

Granted, the device had come in handy in his dealings with Dean Winchester, and he did find that since the end of the apocalypse it had become Dean's preferred method of communication with him. His reinstatement into corporeal form had left his angelic flight a bit shaky for a while, about an earthly week, but he was now strong and able to assist Dean in any manner he deemed important. Lately it had been to pick up hamburgers at White Castle and the occasional three in the morning emergency Tylenol, among other, more intangible and rather personal reasons he didn't want to dwell on too deeply-especially since *those* calls usually involved a significant amount of alcohol consumption and the XXXAdultsOnly channel at Motel #8.

Castiel checked his watch. The time, in earth hours, was one-thirty-seven in the morning, a time that Dean Winchester was usually quite drunk, but not yet at the XXXAdultsOnly Motel #8 stage. For a reason he couldn't quite fathom, Castiel felt disappointed. He decided he would wait on the text for another half hour ensuring that he didn't arrive when he wasn't fully expected to perform those things he was supposed to...perform...at that hour.

But the cell blipped, and then blipped again, and now Castiel was sure that Dean was trapped in a corner with some ridiculous demon, or monster, or avenging angel, or some other miserable creation of the netherworld and thus, as an angel of the Lord, and one who had gone through the trouble to piece Dean Winchester back together after saving him from Perdition, it was his celestial duty to ensure Dean was safe from further harm.

So, it was with great surprise that he saw the text message was not from Dean Winchester but from a very different, very unwelcome source. It wasn't in Castiel's interest to converse with demons and he wasn't entirely sure what he was supposed to do with the correspondence blinking with white fury on his cell phone. Crowley's urgent message had a note of panic in it, but this still didn't alleviate the feeling within Castiel that it would be best to simply delete it and act as though he'd never seen it. But that would be a falsehood, wouldn't it? He wasn't sure if such subterfuge applied to electronic devices, for surely no one expected to be available at all times of day and night, even if, technically, they were. If he didn't answer, would that imply he wasn't there, and thus lying, or could it be a genuine silent message informing the person at the other end that no, this party did not wish to converse with them, ever, not even in text form. It was a rather difficult issue, considering one line of thought on the matter was a mortal sin and the other was simply establishing a healthy emotional boundary.

Castiel shrugged, and decided to err on the side of caution. "I am replying to you due to an ethical grey area. Please do not respond."

Which of course meant that Crowley sent him another text, this one in all caps: "BOLLOCKS! ANSWER YOUR FUCKING PHONE!"

Castiel frowned. "I am perfectly aware of what the word 'fucking' means. I do not use this device for that purpose." He hit 'send' and waited for a response.

"U STUPID - HELP ME. IT'S WHAT YOU BASTARDS DO, ISN'T IT? HELP. HELP. HELP."

Well, this was easy enough to answer. Castiel punched in the letters with lightning quick thumbnails. "I am not required to help demons."

"ANSWER YOUR PHONE OR YOU WILL BE FUCKING IT!"

Castiel's thumbs continued to do the talking. "Your statement makes no sense. I cannot answer it. I do not have minutes. The little rectangle is blinking red. Good-bye." Then, as an afterthought: "Never use 'all caps'. It implies you are shouting."

The phone went red hot in Castiel's hand, burning the skin on his palm enough to sizzle it. He stared at it in puzzled wonderment. Crowley was definitely determined to get a hold of him. Perhaps it would be wise to see what the demon wanted after all. The latest message blinked at him, the letters framed in an animated halo of fire. Interesting app, Castiel thought. I wonder if there is one with kites?

"GET IN FRONT OF A MIRROR."

Castiel began typing, his fingerprints singed off, the skin on his hands blistering. "Why?"

"JUST DO IT."

The cell phone burst into flames, the electronic components within it sparking haphazardly before finally sputtering out and dying. That was certainly unnecessary. Castiel raised a brow at the destroyed cell phone, knowing he was set to have another long conversation with Dean Winchester about it by morning. Yet another replacement was needed. That made five this month.

With his heart heavy that Dean could possibly try to call him in half an hour and he would need to resort to entering Dean's drunken dreams to make sure, (and thus, he'd know Castiel had lost yet another cell phone.) he knew Dean was going to be very angry. Castiel would have much preferred a two am text riddled with typos and full of odd requests that the angel was never sure he properly executed. In any event, it made Dean happy, and that was what mattered. Only now Dean wasn't going to be happy, he was going to very angry and he was going to shout at Castiel over fees and contracts, both of which were more complex than a crossroads demon's paperwork.

He tossed the cell phone into a nearby trash can and began to hunt for a reflective surface, which was not very difficult to do. He crouched in front of the side view mirror of a nearby Lamborghini and was shocked to see Crowley scowling back at him. "This is unexpected," Castiel observed. "I didn't realize you could perform this sort of correspondence."

"I've been forced to," Crowley explained. He looked nervous, his face sweaty, and this alone also put Castiel on edge. "I have a real problem," Crowley said.

"Explain."

"My body has evicted me."

Castiel raised a brow at this. "Impossible. I know very well that the soul of your present host has long since expired. For you to be 'evicted' as you say, that would require an exorcism which, of course, would not work since there is no soul left to take your place. You are clearly lying."

"What?" Crowley was incredulous. "Why would I lie about something so ridiculous?"

"You are a demon. It's what demons do."

"Not this time, you idiot!" Crowley's face was pained as Castiel made a motion to walk away. "No! Wait! You have to listen to me! I'm telling you, the body just...One minute I was in it, and the next I'd just bloody popped out. It went into the washroom and shaved, it took a shower-Didn't give me so much as a second glance and walked out the front door! Bloody hell, I can't be the buggery bastard King of Hell without a body, I'll be a laughing stock! You have to help me!"

"Your pride is none of my concern," Castiel darkly reminded him. He wiped at the condensation collecting on the mirror with the sleeve of his trenchcoat. "Good-bye."

"This is most definitely your concern, you despicable lap-dog! You think I can't smell the desperation off of you? You want to rush to Dean Winchester's side right this very minute and cuddle up with him until morning and hope he doesn't remember this time. You disgust me, angel, playing all holier than thou sparrow when you are just as lusty for the flesh as any other WHORE!"

Castiel stormed back towards the Lamborghini, his fury smashing the windows and crumbling the roof of the car like a flimsy tin can.

"You will not talk to me thus, demon!"

"Oh?" Crowley laughed at Castiel's furious glare. "What are you going to do to me? Smite me? Cut me down? Take a good look-there's nothing of me here. I don't have a body, it's out there, on its own, doing things with *my* mind mapped inside of its cranium. Think about that in your massive angel database up there between your squinting eyes. There's a body without a soul walking around with MY likeness, and MY wiring, and maybe, just maybe, that body isn't going to be as averse to the idea of an apocalypse as I was!"

Now. This was a serious problem, one that was far more reaching in its scope than Castiel had first anticipated. He paused, stepping away from the Lamborghini, which was now screaming in alarm, a small fire erupting from its back seat. Crowley's scowling face was engulfed in flames as the police arrived on the scene, his smoky essence leaving the mirror and Castiel's worried frown behind. "I'll meet you at Motel #8," Castiel shouted to the dissipating reflection. "We'll have a formal meeting to discuss this further."

"Hey, buddy," a cop shouted to Castiel. He shone his flashlight into the angel's face, searching for signs of intoxication or crazy. "Who you talking to?"

"A demon," Castiel truthfully replied.

The officer let out a low whistle. 'Yeah, whatever buddy." He turned away and reached into his jacket pocket, pulling out a small notepad. "Look if you're a witness to this vandalism we need to get your statement here." He glanced up. He shone his flashlight into the nearby bushes, towards the burning car, against the phone booth and along the centre of the street.

There was no one there.

The officer pocketed his flashlight. He would say nothing to no one. Castiel and a plume of smoke were headed to more amicable surroundings, a place where difficult questions might find uneasy answers.

**chapter three **

Dean Winchester was not grasping the gravity of the situation. Sam, his moose-like brother, stood over him in brooding certainty that something in the universe as they knew it was Seriously Wrong, but Dean...No, Dean Winchester was far more content to stare into the pink and purple Little Mermaid hand-held mirror Castiel had borrowed from a young Motel #8 guest and snicker at Crowley's scowling face. "I'm thinking this pink is totally your colour." He choked on his laughter as he held the mirror up, his fingers testing the two day old stubble at his chin. "Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the fairest of them all. .."

"Don't worry, I'll make sure you eat a poisoned apple," Crowley shot back.

Winchesters. Bloody bollocks Winchesters. Crowley tried to push his way out of the edges of his makeshift prison but there was no escaping the Disney influence on his inner surroundings. Little clams began singing in the background. "That body of mine has a lot of explaining to do," Crowley growled. An animated fluorescent green shrimp pinched him on the nose and giggled as it swam away. "When I get it back, damned if I'm going to make it suffer..."

"You'll be the one suffering," Sam reminded him. "You live in it."

Two poisoned apples, then. "Bollocks," Crowley said.

Sam frowned, his usual neanderthal stance that indicated he was thinking deeply. As the more cerebral of the Winchester duo, he was certainly devoid of constructive answers, a fact that was beginning to nag Crowley's sense of hope of getting back on track and regaining his new post. He longed for those days that stretched into infinity where he had a physical form to prop him up and enjoy a good scotch, the stretch of a comfortable couch and a warm fire doing miraculous things for his twisted soul. Yes, he'd been complaining that he was bored and his posting was a bit more of a prison than he'd anticipated and not the challenge he'd wanted. Yet things were worse because here he was, in a prison that was even more stifling and infuriating, this time with little blue seahorses kicking him in the ass and chortling at him with a musical whinny. The huge, sanctimonious face of Dean Winchester smirked back at him. If only he could reach out of this mirror and choke the little corporeal bastard!

"So your body just dumped you." Sam paced the room as he thought this over, his long shadow cutting across the curtains in the front window.

"That's what I said."

"There has to be a reason. You're sure it didn't have a soul? I thought you invaded the body of a literary agent?"

"I rest my case," Crowley said. He gave Sam's still questioning gaze a frustrated groan. "The guy was already on his way out. He ate too much red meat, he led a sedentary lifestyle and he drank like a fish. He stroked out before I could even get the paper signed, and since I was already in the place, I took over the lease."

"So, a body with no soul."

"No soul."

Sam continued to pace the room, an action that made Crowley increasingly nervous. He wanted to shout at the Goliath to quit wearing a hole in the already threadbare rug, but he also knew that Sam Winchester needed this physical push to make his brain juices come to life. A starfish gently nudged Crowley's elbow and he grabbed it with his right hand, choking the squeaking life out of it as he punched the stupid happy face with blunt force trauma. "You going to sing now, you little happy bastard? Oh look, Uncle Crowley got your tongue-YOU GOING TO SING NOW?"

The animated starfish tried to wrench itself free from his iron grip, the tongue hanging from his other fist in wriggling, gory shreds.

"Geez, Crowley, get a grip." Dean propped the Little Mermaid mirror against a pillow on the unmade bed. "You don't have to go all rageaholic on the thing. Come on, man, it's the happiest place on Earth."

"Goddamned cheerful little fucker!" Crowley punched the starfish twice more before leaving its battered animated yellow body bruised blue and purple. "I just want my damned body back! How the hell would you feel?"

"So let me get this straight." Sam pulled up a dining chair from the breakfast nook and straddled it, giving himself a good view of Crowley in the small hand mirror. "Your body has no soul, not even really a mind at this point. It's running on the fumes of what you left behind in it, and it's kind of going through automatic motions, like showering and shaving and getting dressed-all the mundane stuff."

"That's right. It's nothing without me."

Sam shook his head. "No. That can't be true. Because it knew to leave you behind for some reason, and I'm guessing it expelled you because, in its own way, the body felt you weren't supposed to be there or..." Sam's eyes instantly lit up with understanding, "...Or something was triggered. Like in its memory."

Dean clicked his fingers in agreement. "Organ donors."

"If a body memory was triggered, it could react in much the same way as its host might have, with its needs being met on the cellular level..."

"What the hell are you idiots talking about?" Crowley's booming voice shattered Sebastian's hearing, leaving the crab bleeding from his little crustacean ears.

To Crowley's shock it was Dean who explained it best. "There this phenomenon that's been recorded, where when people get organ transplants, like a heart or a lung or an eye or whatever, they can actually experience personality changes. These changes are caused by the memory in the cells of the donors interacting with the body of the new host. Like, this one guy, he hated swimming and yet when he got a donor heart from a guy who was part of a professional swim team you couldn't keep him away from the water. There's all kinds of weird things, like suddenly liking anchovies where you hated them before because the donor used to like them, or watching certain movies or even having memories of places that you've never been."

"That could be what's happening here." Sam focused on Crowley, edging his chair forward. "Tell us exactly what you were doing before you were separated from your body."

Crowley shrugged. "I was just sitting by the fire watching the furnace repairman roast."

"Typical day," Dean agreed.

"For the King of Hell, yes," Crowley testily replied. "I was bored, actually. I was thinking about how this promotion has left me rather empty, the whole concept of Hell being relegated into this dull miasma of petty wants and needs that have no meaning. The apocalypse business left me with a bit of ennui, all that adrenaline and then...Nothing." He gave the Winchesters far too serious gazes a careful perusal of his own. "I'm sure you understand."

"I do," Dean said, surprising him.

Crowley kicked the corpse of the starfish for good measure. It squeaked like a dog toy. "So I read the paper. The Dear Granny section."

"Dear Granny?" Sam choked on his words. "You actually read Dear Granny?"

"She had some very good advice about investment opportunities last week." Crowley set his jaw, his pride in his secret enterprise showing through. "I find the conflicts rather amusing."

"She's a demon," Dean said, and Crowley's black heart fell. "Put her on the list for execution when we get a chance. So-You were reading the exploits of the depressed and pathetic while you were feeling depressed and pathetic and then..."

"I don't know." Crowley paced in his mirror prison, his hands deep in the virtual pockets of his trousers. Sea urchins and gold coins littered them and he emptied the pockets with a new slew of curses. "I read Dear Granny and then I called over Growley and-No. I read an article, just a little side story. Someone had drowned their neighbour's dog."

The motel room was quiet for a long moment.

"That's fucked up," Dean said.

"No kidding. Who does that to a *dog*?"

"Son of a bitch," Sam said, his face twisted into an angry sneer. "When you catch that guy you need to rip off his toes and feed them to his anus."

Castiel was wide eyed as he stared at the two Winchesters and the small hand mirror holding Crowley. "I don't understand. That's quite a severe punishment for harming something that isn't human."

"It's a *dog*, man," Dean said, and glared at Castiel as though he'd just suggested they eat a baby.

"Castiel, you can't possibly think that someone doing that to a dog should get off easy." Sam's hands were on his hips, and he was looming above the angel, his massive height seeming to dwarf him. From Crowley's perspective, he certainly looked as though he was shrinking inside of that floppy trenchcoat. "Haven't you heard the term 'man's best friend'?"

Castiel was still confused. "I don't understand. Many people die from dog bites and attacks every year, they are more a nuisance than an asset."

"Oh, I knew it!" Crowley gloated from within his pink rimmed cage. "He's a cat person!"

"No." Castiel gave confused glances to all of them yet again. "I admit that rumbling thing they do with their stomachs can be quite enticing, but I in no way resemble a cat person."

"A cat person." Dean shook his head, staring at Castiel with naked disappointment. "That explains so much."

"But I'm not."

"Hold on, let's back this up." Sam was up and pacing again, his massive height monstrous in the low glow of the lamp at Dean's bedside. His brow was hooded in shadows as the thoughts ran furiously through his moosehead brain. Or so Crowley thought that was how it worked, for all he knew it was a pile of moths playing poker in there, he had no evidence to the contrary. Sam hadn't been quite the same since he'd been pulled out of Hell, though why the experience was more frightening for him than his brother was another mystery. Two angels had given their lives to snatch Sam Winchester out of Hell before he was chained into the cage with Lucifer and Michael. Knowing their Sammy, it was all about the guilt. Crowley couldn't help but inwardly smile at this.

"It's about the dog," Sam said, certain.

It was Crowley's turn to be confused. "What about the poor dog?"

"The body, your body-it didn't react to anything else, it wasn't until you read that article about the dog being drowned. Tell me," Sam was excited, moving close to the edge of the bed and taking the hand mirror into his meaty grip, his upper lip curling as he chewed on his own knowledge. "what did you do right after you read that article? You said something about the hell hound."

"I gave Growley a scratch behind the ears. It made me feel bad for him, I mean, what kind of monster does that to a dog? *I* certainly wouldn't do that, I would never condone one of my minions doing something like that." He thought of Growley at his feet, his big, powerful silent partner who was with him wherever he went, always protecting him, warning him, being the one companion he could truly trust. His big oafish hound who would snap up souls with all the ease of a spider snagging a fly-slowly,, deliberately and causing as much pain as possible. "I...I love my dog."

The dark in the motel room seemed to deepen. Sam slowly sat back in his chair, while Dean raised a brow at his brother, an unspoken question between them.

"It doesn't matter if I'm the King of Hell, my job is to hate humanity." He sniffed, wondering how Growley was getting on without him. He was probably hungry, needing a walk. He loved frolicking and swimming in the lake of fire this time of night. He always looked so goofy as he shook off the ashes and sparks, his eyes glowing like red embers of ignited coal. "There's nothing in any contract I've seen that says I'm not allowed to love my bloody dog."

"That explains it." Sam sat back in his chair, confident in his assessment. "That's why your body reacted the way it did. You sparked a memory, one that was so strong it decided to shake you off and do something about it." He clasped his hands together and turned to Castiel. "We need that newspaper article."

Dean was cautious. "You think that's where Crowley's body is headed?"

"Why wouldn't it?" Sam rubbed his palms together, thinking on it. "It's going to where it remembers it was loved. It's going home."

**chapter four **

Buried deep within the crowd of an Oscars party, a familiar face peeked out from behind a massive array of ferns adorning a table set way in the back of the ballroom. Using a magnifying glass, Sam was able to discern that it was, in fact, the body Crowley was using creeping along the periphery of the rich and famous, shoved so far back into the woodwork he might as well have been one of the nameless great unwashed cheering just outside the back door, which was coincidentally where his table was situated.

"Literary agent, huh?" Sam placed the magnifying glass to one side and and rubbed at his aching eyes with the heels of his hands. "I have this sneaking suspicion he wasn't all that well known."

"He made it into the party, that was known enough," Crowley tersely replied from the rear view mirror of the Impala. He was getting very irked by their constant scrutiny of his host choice, especially since the man didn't even survive the entire contractual agreement which basically left his recently vacated human condo free to let. Squatter's rights and all that rot, that's what he had going for him, and he wasn't about hand over the keys to some vague memory cell floating about in his host's lower intestine. Bloody ridiculous, the whole business was, and it certainly didn't sound like science to him. For some reason the stilted voice of William Shatner kept invading his consciousness and pestering him with evil intent-"You won't...Be getting...That body...Baaack."

Crowley shuddered and slid to the lower left corner of the rear view mirror, not liking one whit where his thoughts were taking him. As for where they were driving, he had no clue what roads these were or what this tiny little suburban city on the east coast was supposed to mean to him. His body was the one with all the memories and debris of life circling within it. His own past human experience was so long ago he wouldn't have been able to find any concept of 'home' again, not even if he did make it back to the shores of bonnie old Scotland with its bagpipes and kilts and clans and pubs and beer and good scotch and absolutely terrible food. Deep fried hamburgers, really? Bloody wonder the very thought didn't give a man a coronary.

Not to mention that he no longer had a proper Scottish accent and frankly that was just weird. He should have been suspicious something wasn't right ages ago. It wasn't like he couldn't let loose a good rolling 'r' or two, but ever since he'd found that free literary agent's body his larynx would refuse to trip up his tongue proper and all he'd be left with was the softer lilt of an Englishman with an undercurrent of cockney that he simply couldn't get rid of. It was a small detail, one he hadn't given much thought to, until now, with his body in mutiny. Bastard thing, he was definitely going to have to give himself a go over.

'So what do we know of this guy?" Dean asked his brother, and being sure to give Crowley a little bristling glare as he glanced up at the mirror. Prick. "So he hung out with the rich and famous-Was he a wannabe or what?"

"Not exactly," Sam said, going through lists of addresses on a hacked LookUp account. "I found his social security number, but it's been inactive for some time. He worked at the same place for years, some tiny independent publishing company that barely scrapes through its budget every year. He never married, has no dependents, parents died a while back, no inheritances, driver's license hasn't been renewed since 1992, no bankruptcies or bills in his name, no mortgage." Sam shook his head. "I don't get it, it's like this guy wasn't living to start with."

"He occupied space somewhere," Dean countered. "You got an address for me yet?"

"Right here." Sam handed him the map and pointed to where he'd circled it. "Should be coming up on the right, 37 Collie Street. Google view shows it's a bungalow."

True to his word the bungalow sprung into view and Dean parked the Impala a few houses down, behind a thick clump of overhanging branches thick with snow. "I hate the east coast this time of year," Dean complained. He shivered as he turned off the engine. He glanced up at Crowley who was uncharacteristically quiet. "Hey, turn up the heat why don't you, it's not like we need to freeze to death."

"I'm not your personal furnace."

"I'm not wasting gas to put the heat on when you are perfectly capable of making us comfortable. It's the least you can do!"

"Oh, so it's about payment now, is it? Not helping out a friend in need?"

"You aren't our friend," Castiel reminded him and Crowley flinched in surprise at his voice. He'd crashed their little party, flitting into the back seat of the Impala when no one was watching. Sneaky bastards, angels.

"Oh bugger off, who asked you?"

The argument was ready to erupt in full, childish swing, but Sam's eagle eyes prevented it from growing. "I see him. He's going to the house, he's walking up the path." Sam rolled down his window, the cold air snapping into the car making all of them, including Crowley's reflection, shiver. "He's not wearing a coat, and he doesn't seem to be too affected by the cold. He looks very neat and trim, though, a lot cleaner than you usually keep him. Which is odd because I've always thought of you as a bit of an OCD nut job."

"Thanks?" Crowley replied, brow raised.

"Someone is answering the door." Dean fished out his binoculars and got a good view of the front door, where a tall, rather willowy figure stood in its frame. There were a few loud words at the body, and then, to Dean's surprise, the door was slammed in the body's face.

"Got any idea on who that is?" Dean asked.

"A significant other, I believe that is the terminology used," Castiel said. "The body is knocking on the door again. Perhaps we should intercept."

"Just hold on a second," Dean said. He took off his binoculars, readjusted them, and then watched as the door opened again, and the tall figure, once again, began to argue. This time, however, the person threw up their hands in defeat and bid the body to come in. There was a pronounced shaking of the head, a sorrowful resolve evident in the figure's movements. Dean let the binoculars fall into his lap.

"He's done this before," Dean said.

"We need to get in there." Sam was already opening the door, their cover story quickly given lip service to the angel in the backseat. Sam knew by now that Castiel wasn't one to follow perfectly with the plan. This called for some serious improvising. "We'll go around the back, see what we're dealing with first. " He cast a wary glance Crowley's way. "This is pretty advanced stuff, Crowley, how in the heck did your body manage to do this without any real will behind it? I know what my research told me, but in all honesty it was all impressions and feelings...Scientifically, it's impossible for your body to do these advanced functions without you. I mean, take away the whole demon possession thing and you got yourself one heck of a medical marvel."

"It's not going to be your little lab experiment, it's my body, you're not to touch it, maim it, or otherwise harm it, that lovely suit it's wearing cost me two of my finest henchmen and I'm getting it and the body in it back without one thread disturbed. Am I understood?"

"You can't blame the guy, Sam," Dean said, offering his sympathy to this devil, which Crowley strangely appreciated. "I mean, how would you feel if your body went walking around having a life without you in it? Frankly, I'd be all kinds of disappointed, you know? Your body is supposed to be on your side, you're part of a team. Abandoning him like that, well...You know what, it's hurtful."

"Dean, it's like getting upset at what a cat thinks of you. It doesn't have a personality, it doesn't have the capacity to be on your 'side'. It's a car with the lights left on. That's it."

"It abandoned him, dude!"

"It's a residual memory. It's an animated inanimate object, Dean, there is no premeditation here. It has nothing to do with Crowley."

"Cats like me," Castiel argued. He slid out of the car a disturbed, perplexed look on his face. "Their stomachs rumble nicely when I pet them and they look up at me with unwavering delight, like a cherub does only it's not horrifically uncomfortable."

Crowley was left alone in the rear view mirror of the Impala. He sat in the reflected back seat, alone, wondering if this could be some new form of Hell he could cultivate for people who couldn't stand stupid conversations. He could use actual reconstructions from the trio's constant nagging and whinging and bitching and put it on an endless loop. Just the thought made him shudder in revulsion. No, perhaps there were some things too awful to endure, even in Hell.

They crept through the bushes towards the back of the house, their steps not as silent as they wanted them to be. Castiel fell face first into the snow and amid some angelic cursing in Enochian they crept to the back door and hung back, listening in to a very one sided conversation. "I can't believe you did this again!" a voice was arguing. "Five whole months! Did you think I was going to wait around for you? Well? What's wrong with you, don't you have anything to say?"

Pronounced stomping roared through the tiny house and the willowy figure Dean had seen earlier was now in the kitchen banging cups and the kettle and angrily making a cup of coffee or tea. "He killed the dog." There was a long, protracted pause at this, one charged with fury that grew within the confines of silence. "Dammit, did you hear me, he killed Galileo!"

A cup was thrown into the sink hard enough to shatter it. Dean touched his nose, bidding Sam and Castiel to huddle closer. "I say we go the FBI angle. Whoever this is they sure recognize Crowley's body and seem to have one heck of a long history with it. One thing is for sure, the body isn't talking so that might go in Crowley's favour."

"It's weird," Sam said, thinking.

"Of course it is, weird is our life."

"No. I mean the dog." Sam glanced up at the back window, the shadows moving across it purposeful, angry. "The article stated the investigation into the dog's death was still going on, but this person, whoever they are, they know who did it." Sam caught Dean's eye. "This is more than the murder of a nice dog. The body had a darn good reason for coming back here. It wants to protect its family."

"I don't know, Sam," Dean said. He shivered as a cold breeze cut across them through the low hedges. "This doesn't look like any kind of family to me. No kids, and this guy apparently used to disappear all the time. Nothing decorating the place, giving it that homey touch, you know what I mean? I mean look at those hedges, they might as well be chiseled with a razor blade. These people live like mannequins, not living, breathing, blood and dirt people, you get know what I'm saying?"

"No, I don't." Sam inched his way closer to the front of the house. "They aren't demons, if that's what you're getting at."

"They don't even have a BBQ. Who lives like that?"

"So what? Maybe they're just a little different."

"Our motel rooms have more ambiance." Dean peeked into the windows, searching out some semblance of a human touch. There was a sad clown picture on the far wall and Dean shuddered. "These people are freaks."

"Not everyone has your eye for decor, Dean. Come on, just because they don't have style doesn't mean they don't care about each other, or even how they live is wrong. What we think of as happy isn't the whole world's version of happiness. That's a pretty arrogant stance to have. I mean, we hardly fit the bill of a perfect family, who are we to judge?" He took a glance himself through the back kitchen window. "But yeah, that clown picture...Geez. I can see into the living room from here. Oh my God, that is the ugliest couch I have ever seen."

"I know, right? The 70's called, they want you to forget that pattern ever happened." Dean kept his hand on the barrel of his gun as he crept through the icy layer of snow beneath the windowsill. "Put whatever psychobabble spin you want on it, this is just plain creepy. Not even hermits live this sparse a life." They crept to the front steps, guns drawn. "Will you knock or will I?"

"I'd be happy to do it," Castiel said, smiling. He marched to the front door, his index finger and thumb pointing, his remaining fingers curled back, in the manner of an imaginary gun. He rapped hard enough on the front door to leave large welts in the wood. "FBI! Open up! We have the place surrounded!"

Castiel gave Dean a happy thumbs up as a panicked human being ran for the front door.

"Maybe you got a point," Dean said to his brother as they rushed the opening door and forced their way into the house. "Maybe all families are just plain fucked."

**chapter five **

Considering he was the one being scrutinized, Dean couldn't help but constantly eye the officer standing in the living room with a practised, suspicious once over that replayed in an endless loop for about five minutes. He flashed his badge, which the officer barely had a chance to glance at before firing off with the usual set of questions, the first one being, "Are you Evan Cornish, the owner of a dog named Galileo?"

"I'm *Erin* Cornish. The paper got my name wrong. Officer Erin Cornish." Arms were crossed over a strong, but slim, chest, a steady gaze keeping Dean and Sam firmly in their place. "If you're here to talk about my dog, I'm all ears. Hopefully you'll have a damn lot more to tell me than that bastard who just waltzed back in here after going missing for five months." Erin leaned against the fireplace mantle, seemingly exhausted by the twin ordeals. "You didn't have to rush the place, I would have let you in."

"It's policy in these cases to treat the witnesses as hostile," Castiel said.

Sam gave Dean a 'Where the heck did he get that from?' look and Dean could only shrug in response. "We can never be too cautious..." Sir? Ma'am?

Sam wasn't wrong in his initial assessment at the back door. Dean stared at the owner of the house and knew from start to whatever finish this thing was going to be, it was damned *strange*.

First off, the obvious, which was a body living off the residual half-life fumes of a demon, aka, Crowley, aka self proclaimed King of Hell, aka Royal Pain In The Ass, whose spirit or soul chunk or whatever it is that makes him exist is forced to sit in mirrors and hope that someone can be waved over to convince his wayward body to take him back. Meanwhile, said soulless, mindless, automaton body has just casually come home due to the report of a dead dog which triggered some sort of residual memory chip sitting somewhere in the human cell's DNA.

Dean really didn't want to dwell on that too much because Sam had explained the whole mechanics of it to death on the long drive to the house, but this paled in comparison to the issue that stood before him right now, in full uniform, all willowy and kind of pale with a hand on a gun and being willing to use it. Erin, from what Dean understood, is a name that can apply to both a woman or a man, one of those names that makes you pause when you hear it. For Dean, it was a lot like the name Frances. Whenever he heard that name he could never be sure if Frances was just some little geek male pipsqueak down the street or his little sister with the braces. Pat was another name that could apply. Chris. He knew both genetic persuasions of Angie. Mel. Sandy. Sam.

The reason Dean's mind was going into this endless loop of androgyny was because a perfect example of it was standing before him, proudly manhandling their gun (Manhandling? Is that the right term?) and offering to use it should the occasion arise. With blonde, close cropped hair, no chest to speak of and a set of legs that could make a pantyhose model jealous, Dean could only nod in agreement and steal glances at his brother and wonder, inwardly, just what the fuck was Erin, anyway?

It wasn't as if he wasn't open minded, after all he had a few things happen in his past that he wasn't entirely willing to admit to anyone other than maybe Castiel after a dozen or so bottles of booze, and yeah there were a few nights when the mood struck at two am when sometimes the soft touch an angel was all a guy really needed (Did he really *say* that in his head, just now? Come on, Dean, give your melon a shake!). But that was normal stuff. Guy stuff. Donahue and Dr. Phil stuff.

But this? Damn it was going to drive him crazy. How do you manage when you got your guns drawn to help out a civilian against possible demon hordes or a berserk auto pilot body gone bad when you aren't even sure if the person you are rescuing needs a tight embrace or a firm handshake?

"It's not that simple with him," Erin was saying to Sam. "He is a very creative person, in his own way, but he's not a good communicator, he never has been. There were times he wouldn't talk for days, especially when he was stressed, and I guess that's what this is about." Erin pressed the heel of the gun to his or her forehead, the metal cool to the touch. They were all sweltering in the small bungalow, a side effect, no doubt, of Crowley's hidden presence somewhere in the house. "This last time, though, he was gone for five months, give or take. I just figured he'd moved on and while I would have liked at least a phone call, I wasn't about to go pursuing him."

"But if he was your lover that's kind of what you're supposed to do," Sam said.

Erin looked stricken. "You don't understand. We don't have that kind of a relationship."

Pat, Patrick, Patricia. Chris, Christopher, Christine. Sam, Samantha, Samuel...Dean tried to listen, but the chorus of gender neutral names kept getting in the way of his concentration.

"Our relationship is purely platonic. There is no sex involved. We love each other dearly, and feel that sexual contact is unnecessary."

From weird to fucking *weird*. Great. Dean sat on the ugly couch, keeping a good vantage point where he could observe what the body was up to. It had gone into the bedroom and was rifling through the large closet. It took out several shirts and laid them neatly on the bed, giving them a good once over as if trying to figure out if it wanted to change into one of them or not.

"I don't mean to be rude, but that is a little unusual," Sam said. "Sexuality is a very important component in human relationships."

"We found alternatives," Erin cheerfully replied. Erin gave them all a warm smile. "It's been such a relief to see he's here. You have no idea the hell we've gone through. Not everyone understands our lifestyle."

Dean wanted to raise his hand. "Not me! I don't!" he wanted to shout, but his brother gave him a warning glare.

"For instance, there is this one officer at my work, Officer Frank O'Mally, he's one of these metrosexual types who thinks he can bang anything. He's been coming on pretty strong since I've been on my own and I've tried to explain to him how things are and he just doesn't get it. He's the type that wants in anybody and anything's pants, thinks his dick is made of gold. He goes on these hunting expeditions sometimes, brags about being a world traveller and doing things overseas legally he can't get away with here. He's got it in his head that he's some kind of Hemingway hero, even though he's never read a book in his life, you know what I mean? Takes the odd expedition to Africa to do in a rhino. Does nothing for me, he's just a creep. I mean, he's the kind of guy who pretends to be straight but get him drunk enough and he'll go for whatever hand is handy, you know what I mean?"

Dean nodded. He really didn't want to be nodding or understanding, but he was.

"He was my first suspect, I was sure he was the one who killed Galileo." Erin broke down at mention of the dog's name and had to sit on the floor in front of the fireplace, the sorrow of losing what was, to them, their beloved child being too much to bear. "He was such a good dog..."

"This Officer O'Malley, you think he killed your dog?" Sam asked.

"No. I wish it was him, but I don't think it was." Erin sniffed and looked up at Sam who towered above him..her...Erin. "I'm just a beat cop, not that long on the job. Not quite rookie but not enough for seasoned officer, either. I helped take down a major drug player in the neighbourhood a couple of weeks ago. Word has it that he's pretty mad about losing his ton of dope and he's blaming me. This guy has a super-sized rap sheet, from dope dealing to aggravated assault and he's on the top suspect list for two gangland styled murders in the area. I know he was the one who put the hit on my dog. I know his type, he won't be happy until he see us both dead the same way."

Sam made himself a cup of coffee as well as one for his brother. They were alone in the small kitchen, the shattered remnants of the thrown mug still sitting in the empty sink. "You thinking what I'm thinking?" Sam asked.

"Is that a man or a woman and why is my body reacting as though it doesn't matter?"

"What? No.." Sam made a face over his coffee mug. It was decorated with an image of a smiling border collie. "What are you talking about?"

"Whatever you are," Dean said, defensive.

"I'm not ruling out this O'Mally guy. If he's coming on that strong and getting shot down, that's a guy with a lot of angry motive attached to his ego. Dean, that drug dealer didn't find this address by accident. Someone had to have given it to him."

"True, and there's a good chance that O'Mally is going to try again, and this time it's going to be Erin winding up in a burlap sack getting drowned off a pier. But there's one thing you're forgetting Sammy, and it is very, very important." Dean grabbed his mug of coffee and took a large gulp, as though it were bourbon. "We're not here to solve the mystery of who killed the poor dog. We're here to get Crowley his body back."

Sam stood over the stove, his fingers trailing down the side of the steel kettle, tracing the outline of his face on its surface, as though he couldn't quite believe it was there. "I never really understood Cas when he talked about it. You know, about how he went into Hell and picked up your pieces and put you back together again. It was a big request, one that must have seemed nearly impossible to act on. I mean, he put you, your body, your soul, all of it was jumbled up like some messed up Rubik's cube and he put you back into order exactly the way you were meant to be." Sam turned to his brother, the elongated reflection of his face in the kettle morphing along its side into a thin sliver of tanned flesh. "Do you ever wonder if he missed something?"

Dean gave his brother a face. He slid into a kitchen chair and picked up the salt and pepper shakers sitting in the middle of the table. They were shaped like little border collies, upheld paws full of holes. "What do you mean by that?"

"Do you ever wonder if they ever lost a piece of you in there, that you aren't entirely whole?"

Dean put the salt and pepper shakers back, small granules of salt littering the table in their wake. "I do believe you've met Cas, Sam. He's a detail guy. Nothing got left behind." He flicked the tiny grains of salt towards his brother and onto the floor with a sweep of his palm. "That goes for you, too. When they went in there to get you, they made sure all of you came back." Dean smiled at his younger brother. "You sure as hell aren't any shorter from what I can see."

"Two angels died," Sam said, his mood still serious. "They didn't have to go after me, they could have let me rot in there with Michael and Lucifer. I wasn't supposed to come back, Dean. On Castiel's orders some pretty serious risks were taken just to save me, and I can't help but wonder sometimes if it was all worth it."

"Of course it was!" Dean leaped from his seat and grabbed his brother's shoulder, forcing him to look him in the eye. "You listen to me, everything happened the way it was supposed to! There's no piece of you missing, there's no organs floating around in hellfire. You're Sam and you're here and you're whole and you're back. That's all that matters."

"It's so confusing." Sam shook his head and headed out of the kitchen and back into the living room where Castiel and Erin were having a quiet conversation. The body was nowhere to be seen. "I have to wonder, how does this person feel? They lost someone, and they're getting the barest shred of them back and yet...I'm betting that body feels whole to Erin Cornish. Even with Crowley's sulphur stench all over it, it's still familiar. It still belongs here."

He went into the living room, Dean following close behind. He wouldn't tell his brother how he'd wake up in the middle of the night counting his own fingers and toes with obsessive panic. He wouldn't tell Sam that nightmares of his fragmentation assaulted him still.

**chapter six **

His body was ignoring him, which caused no small amount of vexation for Crowley who, while he understood on an intellectual level he didn't actually *own* this body, he was its current tenant and as such had rights to it that were being blatantly pushed aside. He glared at the seemingly smug way the body primped at its thinning hair and the careful inspection of its silver and black tie-a rather nice tie, actually, one that Crowley couldn't find fault with. Its eyes didn't acknowledge Crowley, who was acting as its reflection in the mirror, his mad gesturing giving him nothing back but a blank expression.

"You're nothing without me!" Crowley informed it, which was true, there was nothing in there as its lack of reaction indicated. It fussed over the tie for an inordinate amount of time before tackling the problem of its shirtsleeves, puzzling over whether or not to button the cuffs once or twice. It repeated the action of buttoning and unbuttoning several times before finally giving up and rolling up the sleeves, an action that caused Crowley to wonder just how thoughtful could this thing be if it couldn't even button something up properly?

"Let me back in," Crowley said to it, his essence pressed against his mirror prison waiting for that one opportune moment for when the body looked him in the eye. He figured that was the gateway, the window into the soul as it were, and though it would be a slippery ride back into the squishy grey matter and might leave one eye blind, it was a far better orifice than some of the other selections. Of course, the ear might work, if it could listen to him a little, or if it sniffed, even a good yawn might suffice to get him back where he needed to be. But every time Crowley thought he had an inch to work his essence into, the body turned, or coughed or blinked, blocking him at every millisecond of opportunity.

"I was good to you," Crowley said to the body. "Far better than your original tenant, and as you can see, I was the one who taught you how to look sharp, not him. I saw that terrible Oscars picture, even with him all fuzzy in the background he looked a right mess, all dishevelled anxiety and too many daiquiris in front of him. I gave you quality scotch and good brandy at every opportunity, I gave you healthy gourmet food and took care of all your little nervous tics with a strong cup of Darjeeling tea. That's a lot more than what that sap gave you."

The body began taking off the tie to replace it with another one, a rather pleasant peacock blue number with an Escher inspired design. That was even better than the last one, definitely a keeper. "Make sure you pack up the ties, he did have good taste in those. Just use that duffel bag on the floor, there, we'll sort through them later."

To his shock, the body complied. It walked to the former tenant's closet and began emptying it of all the ties, a good two dozen or so, as well as a few hand picked shirts that Crowley, again, could not find fault with. "I guess my good taste rubbed off," he said, peering over the shoulder of the body as it carefully packed the ties and shirts into the empty bag. "I suppose this means you're coming back with me at some point. If this was all about a few threads all you had to do was tell me, I would have dressed you in better stuff than this." He crossed his arms as he watched his body continue its careful inspection of the closet, the items counted and recounted, placed on hangers and then taken off, only to be placed back on them again, with the occasional shirt finding its way into the duffel bag. Crowley couldn't help but laugh at the spectacle. "Bloody brilliant, this really takes the piss, it does. Here the Moose out there thought you were feeling lonesome for home but the reality was you missed your shirts. Ha! Vanity thy name is-whatever your name was, I can't bloody remember."

Crowley chortled into his fist. "And here I thought it was about a bloody dog."

The body reacted, so fast that Crowley didn't have time to compress himself into his smoky essence, the body's eye twitching furiously at him, its forehead pressed close against the mirror as it regarded its former guest with a vehemence that had far too much humanity in it for Crowley's liking. "There, there now, back it off just a little. So, this is about the dog. Don't say I'm not the understanding sort, I get it, I really do. I got one of the little tail wagging munchers myself, as you know."

He gave the twitching eye a good study, trying to find a way in, but there was something getting in the way, blocking his entrance with furious intent, a pulsing veil of memory that absolutely would not let Crowley in. The vessel was empty, as Crowley knew, but there were still messages on its inner answering machine, ones that were specific in nature and that did not like Crowley one whit.

"Don't kid yourself mate, if you hadn't had that coronary you would have signed on the dotted line just like everyone else."

The body's twitching eye was not in agreement, the growing sentience within its gaze causing a bit of a problem for Crowley. He was sure the soul had left it, it was certainly an empty vessel when he'd gone in, and now with these little pieces woken up he was going to have to give the place a good scrubbing once he got his foot back in the door. "It doesn't matter anyway. You aren't really here, it's just a little cellular shadow of you playing about in your closet, not the whole you. I'm mostly you, now. You've expired and tripped off to netherworlds unknown and all of this you're playing at is a pointless hope for a past you no longer have." Crowley pursed his lips as the body stepped back, seeming to weigh the merit of his words. Crowley casually placed his hands in his trouser pockets and rolled back and forth on his heels.

"That's right. That person out in the living room there, they want the man who left this place not the little shard of him that you are. They want to snuggle up tight with a good book and a glass of wine. You aren't exactly up for that, you can't even decide between a red tie or blue tie because there's not enough left of you to make those sorts of decisions." Crowley tapped the side of his head. "I'm your brains. You're just instinct." Crowley took his hands out of his pockets, his palms head out in a giving gesture. "It's easy. Just let me back in and we'll take care of this silly business, whatever it is, and you need never fuss over coming back to this trouble again."

Again, the body inexplicably rejected him. It turned its back on Crowley's reflection and headed for the living room where the triad of moron was having a meeting with an androgynous copper. He hadn't quite figured out yet if the former tenant of his body was gay or straight, and the girl or boy friend in the living room wasn't helping in that matter. It would have been great fun to taunt Dean Winchester, who was probably having an aneurysm in his attempt to figure out the whole gender issue, but it was also weighing on Crowley's sensibilities. A lover he could understand, especially if the body had fond memories of enjoying that significant other's fleshly delights, but from what he'd heard sex hadn't been a part of their equation.

There were very few things in common between them, when he thought on it. They didn't share hobbies, you could see the line right down the middle of the bedroom, one side full of old antique bric-a-brac while the other was sterile and modern with a few books on the white Ikea side table. One was a cop, living an adrenaline punched life going after drug dealers and suffering the fallout while the other was a selective mute, spending ninety percent of his life reading books and having anxiety attacks at the thought of going to an Oscars inspired dinner, a sad replication of what was happening in Hollywood. That excitement alone had done the soul in. So, with these polar opposites circling each other all day long and sharing a bed that shared nothing all night, just where in the hell was the catalyst for mutual affection?

He found it in the mirror's reflection, at the bedside, two identical photographs, one placed on the white Ikea side table to the left and the other on the antique cherry wood bedside table on the right. It was an image of his body's smiling face showing far more emotion than it ever had in its life accompanied by Erin, the androgynous cop who still looked like a cross between Tilda Swinton and Anderson Cooper.

Between them both, tongue lolling out of his mouth, a wide grin goofily hamming it up for the camera, was the fluffy form of a very happy border collie cross of the Heinz 57 variety. Galileo had been a lovely dog, strong, healthy, a good companion. He was also the cement between two very different people, a common loving bond that was perhaps more difficult to sever than the ones that happened between more emotional human beings. This affection was pure in its focus, no distractions getting in the way.

He put the picture back, his black heart heavy with what he knew he had to do. He understood what the body wanted from him, and Crowley knew there was no way he was getting back into it until he fulfilled the bargain. Crowley felt sick, a gnawing, unpleasant sensation growing in the vicinity of where his heart was supposed to be. Damn it all. This was really going to hurt.

"We were very happy together," Erin continued, with a rapt Castiel hinging on every word, the dull minutiae of their lives seeming to be of paramount importance to him. Dean rolled his eyes, giving up on the whole gender quest once and for all. Be whatever it is you gotta be, that was his motto. Live and do...something. Whatever.

Sam was busy poking through the scant belongings. Erin and Crowley's body (what had been the guy's name? He must have been told it a hundred times by now) weren't world travellers and didn't seem to have all that much in common. Erin was shabby chic, he was post modern. Erin read magazines, he read thick tomes and hard science fiction. Erin was country music and he was...He didn't listen to music.

Dean found the body puttering about in the kitchen, washing a set of dishes that were already clean. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to do with it, but the signs of no life were clearly visible. It had on several shirts, and a couple of ties, one black trouser sock and an argyle one tucked over his trouser hem. The body was a mess of half finished ideas and vague memories of what it was supposed to do. It washed the mugs carefully and dried them with a dirty tea towel before throwing them into the garbage bin under the sink.

"Look, I know you got some kind of reason to be here,"

Dean felt stupid. He was trying to reason with an empty vessel, but dammit, he couldn't just look at this human looking-person? Thing?-without having an acute understanding that some tiny piece of it was in crisis. "But believe me, if you're trying to cling onto a life you once had, you might as well forget it. It's all changed since you've been gone. There's no room for an eighth of you here let alone a whole quarter, you get what I'm saying? Your partner, Erin, needs to have a life too. You aren't here any more. I don't know if the whole ghost scenario applies to you or what, but I know that souls that linger around when they should be moving on turn into these ugly rage machines and you don't want that to happen. You could end up hurting Erin."

The body ignored him. It moved towards the kitchen table, cleaning it with the dirty tea towel. It picked up the salt and pepper shakers shaped like collies and paused over them for a very long moment.

He placed them back on the table with reverent care. A bit too much care for a body that had no awareness of its surroundings and had just been chucking clean dishes into the trash.

Dean snatched the salt shaker up. "This means something to you, doesn't it? What is it? What does it mean?"

But the body gave him a blank stare. Whatever secrets it had embedded in its cells, they weren't telling.

**chapter seven **

Castiel tried to ignore the blinking text on his cell phone, the little flame app licking each letter. "WASHROOM. NOW." it read. Castiel turned off his cell phone and continued his conversation with Erin. Rude demons with corporeal bodies that misbehaved themselves were just going to have to wait. "So you believe the drowning of your dog was in retaliation for your involvement in taking down this drug dealer." Castiel pretended to write the information down, which of course meant he actually*was* writing the conversation down. "Do you have any idea why it was your dog, specifically, that he went after?"

"Galileo was our world." Erin cast a worried glance down the hall leading the bedroom, the scuffling of the body echoing into the sparse living room. "There's something kind of off about him, don't you think? I mean, I don't mind he hasn't said anything, but he's like that, it's part of his personality and I accept it. He has a lot of problems expressing himself, unless he's reading or writing things down. That's why he made such a good literary agent, even if it was for a tiny publishing company. It feels different this time, though. He's really kind of...off. The last time this happened he was mute for a couple of days, but this time he's just...I don't know, he doesn't seem to be as aware as before."

Dean Winchester raised a brow and his brother Sam matched it. "The last time?"

"He comes back, he leaves, it's been like this for the past five months. It's really frustrating. I mean, if he wants to break up why doesn't he just pack up his stuff and go? I caught him three weeks ago in the backyard with Galileo, playing catch with him for over two hours. Then he left, not saying one word to me. If he wants another life with someone else, I get it, but why torture me like that? It's pointlessly cruel."

Sam was confused. "I thought you said he'd been gone for five months and you didn't know where he was?"

"He *was* gone! He still is!" Erin's face flushed with worry and frustration. "I don't know how to explain it, but that person who keeps dropping in here, it looks like him, it tries to act like him, but he's...He's missing. I don't have words for it." Erin gave both Sam and Dean an imploring look. "Maybe if we can get him to a hospital or a doctor to have him checked out. Nothing has been right since that ridiculous Oscar dinner. Maybe he had a stroke?"

Sam and Dean exchanged glances. Castiel took advantage of the uncomfortable opportunity and headed down the thin hallway leading to the bedroom. The bungalow was a tiny affair, consisting of a kitchen, a living room and a single bedroom with an adjoining bath. There was no basement. Closet space was at a minimum. In many ways it was like a rented apartment with a lawn, only this time of year one had to shovel one's way out. He paused and cocked his head to one side as the body came into view, and Castiel watched its circular, automatic movements as it fussed over bed covers and straightening a rather ugly painting of a clock. There was no Salvador Dali rendition of it, no surreal interpretation of time. Just a simple black and white image of a black and white clock bolted firm against a white wall, above a white lamp which was in turn on a white bedside table.

The only thing with colour on this side of the room was a photograph in a white frame of the body, Erin, and a rather goofy looking tumble of fur that Castiel understood to be Galileo, the dead dog. In the periphery of Castiel's vision, he could see the bathing room with its large mirror, the outline of Crowley frantically trying to get his attention and when he realized he was unable to do so, the demon was pantomiming all manner of lewd gestures and threats of dismemberment. Castiel continued to ignore him, for he had a far more interesting specimen to converse with.

"It is my understanding that you have been able to evict Crowley, the demon possessing you, from your physical self for quite some time. This may not have been entirely wilful on your part, and no doubt Crowley is completely unaware of these visits home. You are not a complete person, but you are enough of one to indulge in subterfuge. I imagine it's been quite a good scenario for you, being able to come home and check on things before being forced into the background again as Crowley takes over. I am sure it's been highly risky for you, keeping tabs on that balance, ensuring your actions weren't detected."

The body paused. It stared at the pillow, eyes blank, but something, that indomitable spark that Castiel know to be Human Will, was running wild within the corner of its dark brown gaze.

Castiel gestured to the highly antiseptic side of the room. "Your surroundings suggest you are a being of great restraint. It's no easy thing to have this amount of self control. Yours is a very strong personality, not one that easily bends to the will of someone else." He picked up the photograph, studying it intently. "A powerful demon such as Crowley is not easy to manipulate and I am impressed that you have been able to do so without recrimination. But this time you made a serious breach of your usual pattern and that disturbs me. What is your real purpose here? I understand you lost your dog and this upset you greatly, to the point you have taken this unnecessary risk. But you had to have known that this would result in your permanent caging beneath Crowley's overwhelming personality." He placed the picture back on the bedside table very carefully. "You know you will never be able to come back here again. Crowley will take possession of your body, I myself will ensure it. As you know, there are far too many security risks involved to leave you untethered to him."

The body slumped to the sit at the edge of the bed, wide brown eyes staring emptily into a point of space only it could fathom. Castiel had seen that look before, on Dean during one of his sweat inducing nightmares, a cold, shivering realization pouring out of him bodily, the stench of terror lingering in the motel room. But this was not entirely the case here, for while there was a residual, lingering fear, there was more a resolved sorrow, not unlike the cold breeze that crept up from the newly dead.

"How does Galileo fit into this?" Castiel asked, and the body shot him a glare filled with enough hate to fill a dozen or so hells of its own. It clenched its fists and ground its teeth, its throat gurgling with words it could no longer speak. Castiel sighed and gave Crowley's furious stomping in the mirror behind him a roll of his eyes. "Erin says that Galileo was murdered by a drug dealer. Why are you here with Erin and not going after the person responsible for your pain?"

Castiel heard Dean cough in the background, the low rumble of Sam's voice seeping in from the living room, down the slender hall and into the bedroom. "I still don't get it," Dean was saying. "The two of you never even had sex."

The body shifted where it sat and Castiel's face lit up with understanding.

"This is your family."

The body shuddered at Castiel's choice of words. It stood up and began its ritual organizing of the closet, arranging blue shirts in a scale of light to dark, with white shirts taking the lead. "Thank you," Castiel said to it. "You have been very forthcoming. This is quite possibly the easiest conversation I have ever had with a human."

His mood considerably brightened, Castiel left the bedroom and the OCD zombified version of Crowley's body behind and entered the bathing room, where Crowley's furious face lit up the long mirror with all the force of his virtual hellfire might. It was getting very hot in the small bungalow, the air charged with Crowley's trapped rage.

"Well?" Crowley demanded.

"Well, what?" Castiel asked.

"Did you get any answers you insufferable moron! Why can't I get back in my body!"

"It's not your body. From your own statement you never obtained the proper permission to take it." Castiel held up his hand to halt the torrent of curses that spilled from Crowley's virtual mouth in a suddenly fluent Scottish brogue. "There is no need to panic. I will assist you in returning to the body once its current need has been met. I suspect it is worried about the last remaining members of its family and..."

"It's all about the damned dog," Crowley sneered. "He's not getting him!"

Castiel frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"Growley, you idiot! Haven't you been paying any bloody attention?" The mirror crackled and sparked with pent up firepower. "I'd sell my own soul to the highest bidder if it suited me, but there's no contract in any universe anywhere that says I'm to give up my dog!"

Castiel's joy at finally understanding a complex human tragedy was erased at this. "How do you know he wants your dog?"

"It's obvious. That's what this whole ploy is about. Drug dealer, living here alone, impending danger...He wants my Growley! The greedy bastard isn't getting him!"

"I don't understand." Castiel glanced over his shoulder to the automaton being arranging carefully pressed shirts on hangers, this time in alphabetical order according to manufacturer labels. "How are you making this connection? I found his argument to be quite articulate. But then, he didn't say very much, and was perhaps a bit vague on the details."

"Drug dealers. For something so boring and stupid and pointless and worthless, I'm dragged away from my job, my very, very, very important job, to go slumming it with a zombie and its gender neutral platonic body pillow!" Crowley was really frothing at the mouth now, licks of fire escaping the mirror and leaving sizzling holes in the bathmat. "I'm telling you, when I get that body back I'm killing it. No more good Craig and healthy dark stouts it's all deep fried Mars bars and suicide salt lick buffalo wings, have you got that, you mindless tosser!"

"The body really doesn't care about your feelings," Castiel reminded him. "You can't reprimand it for doing what its memory has deemed natural."

"Natural," Crowley spat. "There's nothing natural about any of this! There is no dust to dust going on here, the natural order has been most seriously, my dear, thoughtful angel, fucked with-which is the closest that uptight bastard ever got to doing it!"

"You are being unnecessarily crude," Castiel said, annoyed. He stepped out of the bathing room and closed the door behind him, ignoring the horrendous cries of protest from Crowley as he gently clicked it shut. "You're getting far too noisy. There's no need to further upset Erin."

But upsetting Erin was the order of the day. The words had no sooner left Castiel's lips than a roaring crash erupted in the living room, followed by the unmistakable explosive pounding of gunfire. Castiel ran into the living room to find Dean and Sam had overturned the couch, using it as a shield, while Erin stood with gun cocked, ready to fire at will. Outside, a figure stood apart from several others, a flaming Molotov cocktail held in his grip.

"This is for you, bitch!"

The front window exploded on impact, the Molotov cocktail thrown into the living room where it erupted on the orange shag carpet, engulfing a large part of it in flames. Loud voices shouted at them from the back door. They were surrounded. The figure on the lawn approached, his gold teeth gleaming in the darkness.

"I'm going to make you pay for crossing me," he promised.

**chapter eight **

"Let me guess. Our friendly neighbourhood drug dealer." Dean fired off a few rounds which were returned with expert precision. "Dammit. I hate getting into gunfights with humans. They hardly ever fucking miss." As if to prove the point a single bullet flew past and grazed Dean's ear. "Dammit!" He touched the injury tenderly with his fingertips, frowning over the spots of blood. "We better figure out something quick, Sammy. Demons and hell and fallen angels are our speciality, not a bunch of morons hopped up on death wishes and meth."

Another round of bullets flew past, one large blast leaving a massive hole in the centre of the couch. It was just a little too close to Dean's jewels for comfort. "Sammy, come on, think of something!"

"O'Mally did this!" Erin shouted from behind the kitchen wall. Erin shot down a couple of gang-bangers brandishing machetes in the kitchen before turning back to Sam and Dean. "There's no other way this bastard could have found out where I lived!"

Bullets zinged through the air overhead while Sam and Dean huddled closer to the armchair resting on its side. Dean noticed the pattern it sported was of cowboys and large Oklahoma styled wagons from the turn of the century. 1970's curbside chic. "Sammy, I'm not sure, but I think we might both be in hell."

"I don't get this," Sam hissed, his rifle cocked and ready, but it was no match for the hand held magnums these guys were packing. "There's something really strange about this whole scenario and I'm not talking about the whole androgyny asexual thing."

"Dude, it doesn't matter what you think. It still weirds me the fuck out."

"Dean, I'm thinking none of this is about what we think it is." Sam's jaw set and he crouched low, edging towards where Erin was poised with the glock. "If O'Mally sent these goons on Erin's trail, it's not about what's in his pants. This is about something concrete."

"Such as?" Dean asked. He cocked his rifle and rock salt made a nasty dent in the crotch of an angry gang banger whose screams quickly dissolved into a whimper.

"We're dealing with humans here, Dean," Sam reminded him.

Dean openly cursed. "Fuck me," Dean said, shaking his head. "This is about money."

They were just going to have a conversation, this body and soul. After Castiel had left the bedroom, all hell had broken loose and the body, non-reactive and completely oblivious to all but its most menial tasks, opened the bathroom door for a repeat of its obsessive primping. Crowley, his patience at an end, watched him as he carefully began the process of neatening his thinning hair with a comb.

"We work better as a team," Crowley said to it. He lifted his head, feeling a swelter of pride at the way he'd filled out that body, made it live life the way it never had a chance or the courage to previously enjoy. All those bits of flesh he'd rendered with those hands, all those throats he'd crushed. It had been a pleasant run.

"I admit, perhaps I have been neglectful of you lately. I've been rather lazy since the apocalypse didn't happen. Perhaps I've lulled you back into your familiar sense of ennui without my knowing it. I admit, it was easy being housed by you, you don't pester me with questions or pleas for release, you don't ponder your mortality or the horrors of the hereafter. You have been, by all accounts, a most loyal and trusted servant whom I have been privileged enough to divulge all my most inner secrets to without recrimination. You have proven to be resilient, compliant, even harmonious in ethos. Despite your obvious inclinations to the contrary, your hand and mine haven't exactly been celibate." He gave the body an endearing smile, especially at the way that flicker of willpower clenched into startled wakefulness when the bullets began flying in the living room. Wonderful. There was now a chorus of carnage. Sam and Dean's curses filled in the spaces between gunfire, turning the whole bloody conflict into a musical.

"What I'm getting at is that you are as trusted a creature as a man can get without being a dog. You can't tell anyone what you know and while you are testing me with the limits of what you can do without me, you still have a very real understanding that there is no real existence without me. I'm the hand feeding your desires and you'd be wise to lick it instead of bite it." Crowley gave the body a sardonic grin. "I suspect you'd rather like that. Salted, with a shot of tequila and a wedge of lime. Body comforts. I get it now."

Crowley's spell had nearly worked. He was so close to the body's ear he could feel the pulse of blood and guts rushing headlong through their automatic responses, making cells divide and forcing life to exist when it was supposed to have long expired. He was just about to make the leap from the mirror to the smooth cartilage and then towards the eardrum, which would need to be perforated, an unfortunate handicap, but one that could be patched up eventually, when the sound of Erin's panicked voice sprung the body into action.

"O'Mally did this!" Erin shouted.

The body ran from the bathing room, showing a significant amount more human will than it had before. So, it had been hiding it, the sneaky brain dead bastard. Just wait until he got it back, what a lesson he'd give it!

Crowley crept along every reflective surface, hoping to get a good vantage point. He found a large mirror over the living room and got a good view of the Winchesters cowering behind a chair, the overturned couch reduced to a burnt out husk. Erin shot down two gang members brandishing machetes.

Crowley slid across the doorknob hanging loose from the front door. He gained a wide, distorted view in copper sepia of the interior, the image of a gold toothed goon throwing flaming mason jars full of gasoline well in his sights. Gold Tooth's hands were never empty. If he wasn't holding flames, the gold toothed jackass was holding a gun. He pointed it towards the living room, through the jagged hole that was now the front window, and before Crowley could utter a 'Bollocks!' in warning, he'd pulled the trigger.

Crowley's body staggered back. A large, crimson flood erupted from just below its left shoulder, spilling through the carefully chosen white shirt, its crisp lines soaking up the blood and spinning it into a clean, through and through wound that by all accounts was fatal. Except, of course, the body was only somewhat alive and this injury did little to prevent its constant, relentless need to exist. It approached Erin, who dropped the gun, a curse word spilling forth. It was all very simple, really. From doorknob, to mirror, to candlestick to reflective pool of blood, Crowley made his way straight through the front door and into the bullet wound.

Capillaries exploded around him as he expanded within the body, his essence pouring into every cellular crevice, every hollow bone and dried vein. The heart, long since abandoned, became fat with Crowley's energy, likewise the liver, the kidneys, the appendix and the upper GI tract. Crowley wasn't going to make the same mistake twice, he'd fill up this house with as much of himself as he could and damned if there wasn't a whole lot of him to go around.

Another bullet sped towards his head and Crowley held up his hand, stopping it with a touch of his power. He turned the bullet around and, to the fainting shock of Erin who lay prone on the floor at his feet, the bullet returned the favour to the gold toothed moron on the front lawn. A real bulls-eye, one that surely didn't miss, not with the speed Crowley had put on it. It cut through the drug dealer's skull like a quality meat cleaver, shearing his head into two neat pieces.

Castiel cleaned up the rest of the mess with a wave of his hand, corpses dissipating in seconds, the blood and guts scrubbed out of the walls and floors and ceiling, even the couch was brought back to its original state, only perhaps a little newer than before.

"Show off," Crowley said.

Dean and Sam propped Erin into the chair near the fireplace and did their best to make the position seem natural, Dean copping an exploratory feel notwithstanding...

"Dude, keep your hands to yourself!"

"You want to know as much as I do!"

"No, Dean, I don't!"

"Ah yes, Tweedledum and Twattledumber, humanity's finest. I must say, I'm very disappointed in this scenario. I had thought there was far more going on here than the usual mundane pursuits of money and power, and it's rather depressing that it's all the same old, same.." He frowned, his words not forming the way he wanted them to, his right eye experiencing a very annoying twitch that seemed to worsen the more he tried to talk. "...the same..."

"I believe the body has other ideas," Castiel observed. "Perhaps it would be a good idea to awaken Erin and get an honest explanation of what has transpired here. It is my understanding the body has a very strong connection to this house, to Erin and to their dead dog, Galileo." He made a motion to wake Erin up, only to have Dean's hand firmly grasp him by the wrist, stopping him.

"What we need to do is just leave."

"There are questions that need answering," Castiel insisted.

Sam was the one who answered for everyone involved. "I hate to say this, but Crowley's right. It's just the usual stupid human crap. Greed, right from the word go. From what I can figure, Erin and O'Mally had taken down Golden Tooth out there and in the process picked up a wad of cash. When he made bail, he came back here looking for it."

Crowley was truly disgusted now. "That's it? That's what all this trouble was about?" He stared down at his shoes and the flesh and blood that was attached to them. "I ought to punch you hard in the stomach you dull as dishwater jackass!"

"I do not agree," Castiel said, frowning. "There was far too much emotion lurking beneath the surface for this to be only about finances. I believe the true problem was that the body thought Erin was in grave danger, which proved to be true. The body has been coming here for some time now, Crowley. According to Erin it made at least four other excursions here that you were never aware of."

"What?" Crowley grabbed the lapels of his stained shirt, clinging onto them with all his might. "What do you mean it's gone sleepwalking without me? Bloody hell, what has this thing been up to?"

"Walking a dog," Dean said, frowning, his mind gearing up for the big reveal, only to fall flat at the last second. "Forget it, I don't care anymore. Erin can go and put on a green striped bikini and i still won't know if he...she...it's a man or a woman. It's driving me nuts. Is it his money or her money? I don't know fucking know, man."

The body was still pulling from within, pushing Crowley's essence around and pinching him in odd places, like an ill fitting suit. It had once been so compliant and comfortable, this sudden mutiny infuriated him. He ought to pack it in and just dump it, maybe head into the nearest orifice of whatever is lying better, maybe even Erin, there. Or perhaps not, the whole androgyny gag can only run for so long before it gets tired and he had his own private recreational time to think of.

"Excuse me a moment," he said to everyone, and he dragged his feet down the thin hallway, towards the bedroom. "I just have to talk to myself for a bit."

**chapter nine **

"This all about the dog, isn't it? It keeps coming back to that, a big circular blip in your programming that can't get fixed. Don't think I don't have the knowledge or power to make you do what I want, I've got an angel out there in that living room who knows damned well how to reboot your system. All remaining little cellular bits of you could be eradicated with a click of his fingers. " He didn't mention, of course, that he himself would likewise be destroyed, and in that bitter irony that was the nature of symbiotic existence, the body inwardly chuckled, having overheard him.

In the living room, Erin had been brought back to consciousness by a curious angel who couldn't leave well enough alone. Crowley could hear Dean's booming voice echo down the hall, while a confused and near weeping Erin tried to both explain and take in the carnage and sudden clean up that had happened in his or her home. "I don't understand!" Erin shouted. "There were bullets flying...He was hit!"

"We figure he came back because he was worried about you." Dean's voice was dark, unforgiving. "Our problem is this-We know you took the money from Gold Tooth out there and we know you and O'Mally were in on it together. A bit of skimming off the top never hurt anyone, right? Except you forgot that drug pushing gang bangers and crooked cops don't like sharing."

"It was O'Mally's idea from the start," Erin protested.

"It was greed that did this," Castiel said, and Crowley raised a brow at the smiting judgement in his tone. Erin was about to go the way of snapped fingers in angelic retribution. "Basic, ridiculous, human greed."

"No!" Crowley could feel the energy building within the angel, the body tense in miserable expectation, the very molecules of the air charged with celestial might. He would have to get out of here and quick if he didn't want to end up a pile of inert cinders himself.

"It wasn't about the money!"

Erin's weeping crept along the thin hallway, echoing into the sparse bedroom, the sorrow wrapping around the two photographs of what was once an unusual but happy family.

"It was for Galileo-for the dog!"

Erin's choked sobs were matched by the sudden rush of misery that burst within Crowley's body and the demon fought to keep from weeping himself. Bugger this, where the hell did all this sad longing come from all of a sudden?

"Stop it," Crowley said to the body, his stomach in knots, his heart burning with a pain it had never felt, not even when alive. "Stop."

"We've had Galileo since he was about a year old. I was on the beat downtown and there was a report of a dog stealing a roast out of the back door of a butcher's shop. I found him in the back alley, munching away on a ham bone. He was a real mess, all matted fur and dirt, but he was a pretty friendly dog, didn't growl or anything when I took the bone away. O'Mally, my partner, he wanted to dump him to the pound or just plain shoot him and get it over with, a real waste of time being on a damned nuisance dog call. I told him I'd run him to the pound, O'Mally could meet me at the station later. I never did go there. I brought Galileo home instead."

"So the two of us are here, we lived the lives of amicable room-mates for about five years before Galileo came into the picture and...I don't know how to explain it. He was a smart dog, a really happy, loving ball of fur and he just added something that wasn't there before. I guess we didn't know how empty we were before he showed up. He filled in a space and brought us closer together, as a couple. There was so much love in this house with Galileo here. What can I tell you? It was like Galileo healed something in our hearts that we never knew was broken."

"It's nice that you took in a stray dog, but that doesn't explain why you had to steal money from a drug dealer. " Crowley's body took a nervous glance down the hall and saw Sam standing at the end of it, massive hands on hips. "All you are is a crooked cop."

"Galileo got sick." Erin glanced up at Sam with imploring resignation. "About five months ago, he was diagnosed with kidney failure. The operation was going to cost a small fortune, and there was no way either of us could afford it, not on his meagre publishing salary and my meter maid wages. Poor Galileo was so sick, and he had gone, only flitting in and out of our lives at that point, and he'd been drinking a lot more and then he got invited to that stupid Oscars dinner by mistake. It was a major literary agent they were supposed to have sent the invite to, and he knew it, but he couldn't stand the thought of Galileo suffering and him not making some effort to get some money. He went to that damned party and never came back, not properly back, anyway." Erin wiped away a stray tear with the cuff of a sleeve. "Galileo held all our emotions, about each other, about our lives...Him being sick just made everything seem so pointless."

"So your live in partner was gone and it felt like everything was going to shit," Dean said. Erin nodded but Dean still wasn't totally convinced. "Look, this I understand, your dog is dying and your man is gone, but...I don't get it, first opportunity you get you go and dip into a drug dealer's stash? You risked your whole career, hell, your whole *life* for a dying dog?"

"It was O'Mally's idea. Gold Tooth as you call him had hundreds of thousands of dollars on him when we busted him and all I needed was ten thousand and Galileo was going to get his operation and his little doggie kidney transplant and it was all going to work out fine. What does a guy like Gold Tooth care about a few thousand dollars? It was nothing to him to lose what he had." Erin was bitter, the sorrow too deep to even cry about it any more. "Look around you. It's not like I have much or that I want for much. We lived sparse lives here because it made us comfortable. Going beyond that made him nervous and me edgy. When I tell you Galileo was worth the risk, you can times that by a million and you still won't get how much that dog meant to us."

Right. Conference time.

Crowley and the body stepped back through the bedroom and into the bathing room where the tall mirror gave Crowley plenty of room to manoeuvre. "Here's the deal," Crowley said, hands held open in a giving gesture. "You win."

The body twitched, unsure of Crowley's promise.

"I admit it, I've been a tad unfair and I'm not proud of the fact I misjudged you. I had thought you were here because of that weeping mass of androgynous pus sitting out there. But it seems you had more in mind than your platonic lover's safety. You were thinking about Galileo, about the dog. I get it, I really do. You missed your dog. Perhaps you thought, in your simple cellular processing, that if you came back here you could ignite some conflict and maybe, just maybe, between the forces of Heaven and Hell, we could find it in our ability to bring your darling Galileo back to life in much the same way you were sort of brought back."

A surge of emotion coursed through the body and Crowley fought the urge to cross its arms and give it a hug. "The thing is, while we're able to manipulate and torture the living life out of the average human being, other species don't fall into that equation. It is my understanding that all dogs go to Heaven and not even an archangel has the power to stop that from happening. I'm afraid the canine hereafter is way out of our jurisdiction."

"I'm not the bad guy here!" Erin shouted from the living room. "I just wanted to help my dog!"

"It's very disappointing how all of this turned out," Crowley agreed, the body nodding in sorrow. "But two worthwhile things have come about due to this, you did get your revenge on the man who had your dog drowned and you have brought to my attention some serious security breaches concerning the use of your meatsuit. You're locked in place now, no way are you getting back to this address again, though I doubt very much you are keen to, now that it is a place of such loss for you. You do, however, have one very important feather in your cap. You have become quite attached to my dog due to my own attachment to Growley."

Crowley held up his hand when the body tried to protest, halting its newest argument and giving it pause. "At first I thought you wanted Growley to come here for use as protection, but I get the deeper meaning now. You wanted to replace Galileo with him and keep your happy family intact. I'm sorry to inform you that this is never going to be possible. You're mostly dead and I'm the one living in your meatsuit."

"I can hear him." Erin's voice had a note of panic in it. "Who the hell is he talking to?"

"I'll make this quick." Crowley rolled up his sleeve, showing off a play bite Growley had given him when he'd wrestled with him over a human femur a week ago. "Growley is *my* dog, but there is nothing that states he can't be yours as well. We can live in harmony, in exactly the same way you were before, with a pleasant pooch in between us. You, myself, Growley. Quite a good team. And this time, there are no worries about corrupt jealous metrosexuals or impending mortality. Growley is here for the millennial haul, as am I and as, subsequently, are you." He gave the body a warm smile. "So? Are we agreed, then? Do we have a deal?"

The body shrugged, unsure.

"That we work together," Crowley clarified. "As a symbiotic family."

The body narrowed its large, wilful gaze on its reflection.

Agreed.

**chapter ten **

Erin, of course, remembers nothing. In fact, so much of Erin's memory was wiped a new history had to be reconstructed, one where Crowley's body never had been a part of her life (yes, thanks to Castiel, Erin finally found her gender) and while she still remained a dog person there was one significant change-The dead dog in question was now a chihuahua and had been replaced by two more yipping, yapping ankle biters of doom. It was the least Crowley could do as he wasn't wholly unsympathetic to the whole situation, though Castiel, being an insufferable cat person, was slightly more difficult to convince.

"You can't just change someone into a cat lover," Dean had argued. "That's like making them walk with their feet on backwards, it's not a natural state."

"Cats live significantly longer and are easier to maintain."

"They also claw up your furniture and piss in your laundry when they're mad at you." Dean refused to the budge on the issue. "Cough up another dog and let's get out of here."

"I can't just 'cough up' a dog."

"Cas, are you kidding me? You can recreate this person's entire universe but you can't put an alternative domestic animal into it?"

In the end it was the two Taco Bell yappers who Crowley plucked from the newly dead elderly neighbour Mrs. Potts. She had mysteriously died of a heart attack after viewing Gold Tooth's head getting split in two, an action that was most definitely not witnessed by anyone else on the block, and a good thing too since in this little universe it had never happened. He had to hand it to Castiel, he understood the concept of paradox. No loose ends of time that could get tangled and unnecessarily complicated. It took careful attention to detail to pull it off and Castiel had risen to the occasion beautifully.

"I trust everything is in now in order," Crowley said. "Where are the brothers Grimm?"

"If you are referring to the Winchesters they are back at Motel 8."

Crowley shrugged his shoulders, enjoying the smooth feel of his skin beneath his smoky form, all bones clicked dutifully into place. "I trust their memories of this evening are gone."

"This evening never happened," Castiel assured him.

"Good. Because the last thing I want is for those morons to know I ever had a moment of weakness. We are not allies, we are not friends. Are we understanding each other?"

Castiel shrugged. "I have not once made that assumption."

The angel's cell phone buzzed and Crowley gave him a raised brow. "It's two a.m.," Castiel explained. "Dean needs me."

The body, perhaps Crowley as well, gave an involuntary shudder. "Some things I don't need to know."

"It's about physical needs, nothing more," Castiel further explained, when really, Crowley didn't want any more explanations, he just wanted some Craig, a hot fire and some very, very welcoming alone time with a soul on a slab and a very sharp knife.

"Trust me," Crowley said, giving him a sly smile. "I am all about the physical."

With the two dogs circling her feet, Erin awoke from her slumber in the 1970's shabby chic chair she had purchased at Goodwill and stood with some difficulty, her back creaking with the effort.

"Damn," she said, giving her home a good once over. "I've really got to get some new furniture."

It wasn't a terrible thing, being the King Of Hell. Crowley took great pride in the fact that most people would have bent beneath the enormous pressures he had to endure every day, most of them Winchester in size and shape. It was a lovely end to a rather brutal day and there was nothing better for its cure than a large bottle of Craig and a roaring fire and the snoring slobber of an invisible dog at his feet. Growley had been happy to see him when he came home, and made sure Crowley knew it with an imprint of massive bloody paws on his chest that had nearly knocked him on his ass.

As for his body-for it was *his* body now that the claim had been finally made-it was pleasantly mute. All stressful leftovers within its cells were gone and in their place were the humming mechanisms of Crowley's molecular interference running the show as he always had been. It was a good end to a bad day. Harmonious. Pleasant.

And yet, there was a nagging point that he didn't like to ponder too often, his hand straying to the top of Growley's head as he absently gave the gigantic beast a scratch behind the ears. A tail the size of a small alligator whumped in pleasure against the couch, moving it back away from the central fireplace a few inches. There was now always going to be, just under the surface in so thin a sliver even a microscope couldn't detect it, the constant, wriggling thought that his actions weren't always of his own volition. That he had agreed, with his body, to be in partnership with it, that it was as close to him as any of the burnt cinders of Hell he breathed in during his underworld visits. Partnership was not the same as being an owner. It meant the body, regardless of how much more Crowley could demand, had a say in what happened to it.

His hand paused over Growley's head and Crowley still couldn't be entirely sure if it was his will resting his palm on the thick, leathery warmth of the hell hound's forehead or the longing memory still coursing his body. Either way, a loose end suddenly presented itself in his mind and Crowley couldn't help but grin over the implications. Really, what was he worried about? His body and himself were finally in perfect sync.

Officer Frank O'Mally was a brutish looking bastard and it was quite clear from the state of his home that not one cat nor dog hair had ever adorned a surface. His furnishings were expensive, his items put on display with all the egotistical aplomb of a top interior designer. It took a lot of money to make a home look like it was a photograph clipped from Style In Design. The pictures on the mantelpiece were all carefully framed and were of O'Mally's favourite subject: Himself.

O'Mally on the French riviera. O'Mally snorkeling in Fiji. O'Mally reeling in a giant pike. O'Mally holding up the head of a dead bear he'd just shot. O'Mally standing beside the carcass of a white rhinoceros. O'Mally sticking it to a sperm whale with a many pronged harpoon. It wasn't a huge stretch to envision the man drowning a family pet, especially one that was unlikely to be his own.

"I see you're used to fetching things," Crowley said to a startled O'Mally who had just got out of the shower. The brute stood a good six foot seven inches, his body an exaggerated inverted triangle, a shape that no woman or man in their right mind ever found attractive. "You've fetched a promotion last year. You fetched a known menace to the neighbourhood and had him put behind bars, and you fetched a few dollars in the process. I see you even fetched a picture of yourself in the paper, all smiles over the large drug bust that you accomplished all by lonesome As for these photos, my...You don't possibly believe that shade of orange is fetching, do you?"

"Who the hell are you? Get out of my house!"

It was comical, really, the way he stood there in the middle of his very put together living room, dripping all over his expensive odds and ends, a large splash hitting the coffee table which Crowley knew to be a very rare, beautifully carved item made in Indonesia in the early 1800's. Erin was still a bit of an antique enthusiast, perhaps she would like it.

A hot snatch of air breathed against the back of Crowley's legs and he glanced behind him, a sly smile creeping across his face. "I know, I know. I keep saying it and you want to so badly. You've been such a good boy all day, haven't you? You know what daddy wants, don't you? That's right, you got a job to do. Go on then...Daddy wants a new soul. Go fetch!"

Growley tore into O'Mally, ripping limbs and saving his throat for last for he knew that it pleased Crowley to hear his victim's screams as his torso was shredded by his favourite hell hound. Crowley inspected the place for any other signs of life and found none. Not even a bloody goldfish. No plants. Nothing. It says a lot about a person when they can't stand other living things near them.

Even the King of Hell likes to unwind in the evenings with a loyal friend.

The screaming stopped and Growley, his huge paws leaving wet bloody prints in his wake, shook off the sticky globs of human tissue and drooled bits of flesh and lower intestine along the white leather couch before padding over to where Crowley stood, his critical inspection of O'Mally's choice in wine disturbed by a wet, warm nose against his waist.

Crowley smiled. People who had never had such a dear companion didn't know what they were missing.

"Good dog."

-END-


End file.
